Ask Auntie Pinko
July 25, 2002

Dear Auntie Pinko,

What do you think about Jesse Ventura? I have voted Democrat in five of six presidential elections since coming of age. But I would throw away my vote on Jesse Ventura in a heartbeat. I vote Democrat, not as the lesser of two evils, but because I agree with the Democratic candidate on most issues. However, I agree with Ventura even more frequently.

Ed,
Chicago, IL

 
Dear Ed,

"Voting" Democratic and being a Democrat are not precisely the same thing-many independents with Libertarian leanings, for instance, are attracted to Democratic positions on civil rights and individual privacy, etc. Your vote is welcome, regardless, and I hope you'll continue to give Democratic candidates a chance to explain their platforms to you. Let me give you a little context on Mr. Ventura's appeal, and why it's hard for Democratic candidates to match his straightforward, apparently "commonsense" position on popular and high-profile issues.

One problem with being a major party is that Democrats must grapple with the realities of government and politics, as they play a key role in shaping them. When you run under the aegis of a major Party, you are to some extent subject to the discipline of that Party's whole platform, and their whole agenda. You are also responsible to the Party's members, to other elected officials and high-profile members of the Party, etc. The down side of this is that it can be constraining, the up side is that you are serving a very large number of your fellow-citizens, adding to the power of their participation in the political process.

The old saw about law and sausages ("no one who appreciates law or sausages should have to watch them being made") is truer than ever. Making and administering laws is a messy, chaotic process full of compromises, suspect motives, quids-pro-quo, and letting the end justify the means. It's very easy for a candidate on the campaign trail to make promises, especially one who has never actually been elected before. It's very easy to make simple assertions and assume that common sense will prevail-until you get elected and discover that there is no such thing as "common" sense, and that apparently simple issues have dozens of connections to other issues, which have connections to yet more issues, so that nothing is, in fact "simple."

In other words, a good candidate is not necessarily a good elected official. Mr. Ventura was an excellent candidate-articulate, entertaining, with an innate sense for what matters to people and how to communicate effectively with them. It's not at all surprising that he won, particularly given the stunningly lackluster nature of the candidates the major parties were running in 1998.

But as an elected official, Mr. Ventura found himself with only three assets-a certain amount of good will from a little more than a third of the voters, a ready tongue, and a bully pulpit. Alas, as he and the people of Minnesota discovered, that's not enough. His ready tongue veered wildly between being an asset and a profound embarrassment. The good will of a little more than a third of the voters had little effect on all the people whose cooperation he needed to actually make things happen in government, and the bully pulpit carried with it a harsh glare of scrutiny and pressure.

I wish Mr. Ventura well in his future endeavors, and I appreciated the fresh air he injected into the Minnesota (and occasionally national) political scene. But when it comes to evaluating who would be a good candidate and who will get my vote, I will stick to the same three criteria I have always used:

1. Does s/he share a sufficiently large number of my social and political priorities and ideals;

2. Does s/he have the intelligence, experience, competence, and support to use the mechanisms of negotiation and compromise and the rest of the complex political process effectively enough to advance those priorities and ideals; and

3. Does s/he have the basic integrity to know when not to compromise, when not to give and take, and, if necessary, to sacrifice her/his personal ambition for what is right?

It takes a lot of work to learn enough about the candidates to make a decision based on these criteria, but Auntie Pinko thinks it's the least I can do to contribute my part to good government. Thanks for asking, Ed!

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